Field
Various communication systems may benefit from traffic steering. For example, radio access network based traffic steering can be used to benefit communications by steering traffic to Wi-Fi leveraging Hotspot 2.0.
Description of the Related Art
Non-cellular radio access technologies, such as Wi-Fi networks, are becoming an integral part of mobile broadband. Wi-Fi is already standard feature on smart phones, tablets and laptops and is used by many network operators. However, despite the popularity of Wi-Fi, operators lack a measure of control and lack dynamic mechanisms for determining user device movement between mobile and Wi-Fi networks.
Conventional network selection tools guiding how the user device moves between mobile and Wi-Fi networks are static in nature. For example, third generation partnership project (3GPP) release 8 (rel-8) technical specification (TS) 23.402 Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF), which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, does not support online communication between user device and ANDSF server to dynamically set network selection policies to user device based on changing network environment.
3GPP TS 23.402 allows defining static Wi-Fi selection rules into user devices but as such does not support online on need-based communication. ANDSF allows defining detailed criteria for network selection, like time of day, location and application.
A 3GPP standard, for example 3GPP rel-8 TS 23.401, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, defines Radio Access Technology (RAT) Frequency Selection Priority (RFSP) allowing a mobile operator to control subscriber 2G/3G/LTE access network selection in idle mode and operator resource assignments from these networks for the user in active mode. For one user 1: 3G 2100 MHz 2: 4G 2600 MHz 3: 2G 900 MHz may be applied and to another user 1: LTE 2600 MHz 2: LTE 800 MHz 3: 3G 2100 MHz 4: 2G 900 MHz may be applied.